Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Interventions To Improve Teacher Self-Efficacy Beliefs About Writing And Writing Instruction: Lessons Learned And Areas For Exploration, Jadelyn Abbott, Tracey Hodges, Sherry Dismuke, Katherine Landau Wright, Claire Schweiker

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

The present study explores the findings of a systematic literature review of research about teachers’ self-efficacy for writing and writing instruction to demystify what is known and what remains unknown. We analyzed the pool of research on self-efficacy for writing and writing instruction from January 1992 to August 2020. Our final inclusion of articles resulted in 22 articles that examine teacher self-efficacy for writing and writing instruction while meeting our standards of examining changes in self-efficacy. We examined how shifts in self-efficacy are measured, specific interventions that increase teachers’ self-efficacy for writing and writing instruction as well as interventions that …

Unpacking Writer Identity: How Beliefs And Practices Inform Writing Instruction, David Premont

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

Although identity research is common in educational studies, little research explores the connections between identity and pedagogy, and far fewer specifically examine how writer identity influences writing pedagogy. Additional research exploring the connection between writer identity and writing pedagogy is necessary to offer nuanced teaching strategies to strengthen writing pedagogy. The present study explores the connections between writer identity and writing pedagogy for three preservice English teachers with strong writer identities during their respective student teaching experiences. Interview data were utilized to explore writer identity and analyse connections to writing pedagogy through In Vivo coding in this narrative inquiry. Findings …

Writing Without Audiences: A Comprehensive Survey Of State-Mandated Standards And Assessments, James E. Warren

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

Writing studies professionals agree that students must learn to write for specific audiences. Despite this professional consensus, there is reason to believe that this skill is not widely tested in state-mandated writing assessments. In this study, we survey the state content standards for English Language Arts and the state-mandated writing tests for high school students in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. While all states have adopted standards that require students to write for specific audiences, only a small percentage test this skill on state-mandated assessments. We argue that the consequences of this misalignment between standards and assessment …

A Pen, A Pencil, Or A Keyboard: Writing Center Tutors’ Perceptions, Mirta Ramirez-Espinola

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

A Pen, A Pencil, or a Keyboard: Online Writing Center Tutors’ Perceptions

Author, Adjunct Faculty, Grand Canyon University

Abstract

Writing can be challenging for some students, even those who have graduated high school and are moving forward to higher learning. Thus, an idea about students and writing support led to a study about writing centers and the individuals responsible for supporting struggling writers. This qualitative case study explored the tutors’ perceptions of online writing tutoring and investigated how tutors perceive their work using both asynchronous and synchronous online tutoring modes at a 4-year university. Though the writing center participating in …

A Reflection On Writing Methods: Where Am I Going? Where Have I Been?, Kia Jane Richmond

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

The author, an eminent scholar and practitioner of writing teaching methods, reflects on the growth and development of the community and scholarship of writing teacher education and highlights several key trends as discussed in this issue.

Teaching Priorities As Both Durable And Flexible: Writing Pedagogy Classes Across International Contexts, Charlotte L. Land, Jessica Cira Rubin

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This article developed from a year-long inquiry into our practices as writing teacher educators. As new university faculty in two different countries, we drew on a previous literature review project to identify enduring priorities for teaching writing pedagogy. We then analyzed our developing practices in these unfamiliar places, specifically noting what also felt flexible enough to work across contexts, leaving space for local adaptation. For each of our classes, we explore how we expressed those priorities: discussing teaching practices as connected with theories and discourses of teaching writing, supporting teacher-student experiences through a cycle of writing, and facilitating appreciative views …

Writing Methods Key In Preparing Hope-Focused Teacher-Writers And Teachers Of Writing, Nicole Sieben

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This manuscript emphasizes the need for positioning students (preservice and inservice teachers) in methods courses as both teacher-writers and teachers of writing. It demonstrates the importance of teaching writing methods with a hope-focused, process-driven approach grounded in social justice reasoning and includes ways of positioning students in methods courses as teacher-writers with valued professional presence in the field of English education. By way of example, the piece includes a description of a specific “Professional Writings” assignment from a methods course for pre- and inservice teachers and models the value of choice and voice for writers at all levels. It then …

The Evolution From Mentor Texts To Critical Mentor Text Sets, Margaret O. Opatz, Elizabeth T. Nelson

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This article chronicles how two teacher educators changed the mentor text set assignment--one component of a larger writing unit plan--from a simple list of texts to a critical mentor text set that includes intentionally selected, culturally and linguistically diverse texts. The goal of the critical mentor text set was to support preservice teachers’ understanding of how to implement culturally sustaining writing pedagogy through developing students’ identities, skills, and intellect as writers, and students’ abilities to read texts through a critical stance that evaluates the privilege and power within the texts while working towards anti-oppression.

Learning About Teaching Writing: The Use Of Roles To Support Preservice Teachers Pedagogical Knowledge And Practices, Kristine Pytash, Denise N. Morgan, Elizabeth Testa

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

If teacher educators are fortunate to be able to teach a writing methods class, they encounter challenges in designing field experiences that support what preservice teachers are learning in their course. In this article, we described how we developed a unique field placement where the preservice teachers worked in teams and rotated roles each week. We found that these taking on these roles provided preservice teachers with unique lenses to learning about writing, students, and general teaching pedagogies.

(Re)Engaging The Body In Being & Becoming Teachers Of Writers, Sarah J. Donovan

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This article offers a framework by which writing teacher educators can offer secondary preservice teachers a way to engage lived writing histories with pedagogical content knowledge of writing (PCKW) through embodied practices. Building on antiracist creative writing scholarship and genre theory, two practices from a semester-long course (Teaching Writers) are offered that acknowledge the still-evolving implications of writing education during the pandemic on preservice teachers’ writing development and the writing development of high school students, some of whom spent the past three years only writing physically isolated. The author offers initial observations about the ways she sees embodied PCKW as …

Imagining The Possible: Reflections On Teaching A Writing Methods Course For Pre-Service Undergraduate Secondary English/Language Arts Teachers, Emily S. Meixner

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

What's possible in a teaching writing methods class? In this essay, the author provides a descriptive portrait of the undergraduate secondary writing methods course she teaches, focusing on five specific learning outcomes: teacher writing identities, knowledge of writer's craft, grammatical awareness and an understanding of linguistic justice/injustice, writing workshop methodology, and genre-based unit and lesson planning. Course readings, assignments, and work samples are included.

Humanizing The Teaching Of Writing By Centering The Writer, Naitnaphit Limlamai

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

In this work, the author explains how she prepared preservice secondary teachers to consider themselves as writers and to teach writing in more humanizing ways. She first describes how preservice teachers were guided to cultivate identities as writers and broaden ideas of “writing.” With new knowledge about themselves as they developed writerly identities, they surfaced and unpacked existing ideas about learning how to write and built knowledge about teaching writing, creating teaching artifacts like unit and lesson plans, interacting with local adolescent writers in pen pal letters, and participating in simulated feedback sessions with adolescent writers. Asking preservice teachers to …

Teaching Writing As A Metacognitive Process, Heather Fox

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

In a writing methods course for future K-12 educators, preservice teachers examine the intersections of their experiences as writers, students, and future teachers through three interdependent projects. Completed between Fall 2019 and Spring 2022, this empirical study (n=138) includes Elementary Education, Middle Education, and (Secondary) English Teaching majors and focuses on the first project, Writing Memory, to examine how teaching writing as a metacognitive process facilitates preservice teachers’ understanding of how they and their future students developed, and are continuing to develop, as writers. The project analyzes students’ reflections on how they select and arrange previously written text to …

Variations On A Writing Methods Course: Two English Educators Across Four Decades, Amber Jensen, Deborah Dean

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This article draws on the intersecting autoethnographies of two writing methods instructors over the course of nearly 40 years as undergraduate students, secondary English teachers, and English educators to map the evolution of the undergraduate writing methods course at Brigham Young University (BYU). It identifies five foundational principles that have shaped the course curriculum, learning activities, and assessment, integrating artifacts and student examples to demonstrate the way they enact these principles with the preservice teachers in their classes. The authors conclude by identifying revisions and future directions for the course in its coming years.

On Writing Teacher Education, The Writing ‘Methods’ Course, And The Evolution Of A Community, Jonathan E. Bush, Erinn Bentley

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

No abstract provided.

Criticism, Praise, And The Red Pen: The Role Of Elementary School Teachers On The Enduring Efficacy Of Writing Instructors, Julie Kimble

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

A teacher’s own early experiences with writing, whether positive or negative, have a significant effect on the students that they teach, especially those who go on to become teachers. In a graduate education and reading program at a public university in the southern United States, we ask our teachers through a writing biography assignment to explore these memories of their earliest writing experiences and determine how those experiences fit into their current teaching careers. For this qualitative project, the researcher analyzed essays that were submitted for a “Writing Autobiography” assignment for this graduate level writing class for educators. This study …

The Dimensions Of Teachers Who Write And The Essence Of A Writing Life, Shari L. Daniels, Pamela Beck

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

The purpose of this grounded theory case study was to explore the perceptions among ten K-12 teachers who teach writing and also write themselves. What are the key essentials for teachers to sustain a writing life? What habits of mind or attitudes are necessary for teachers to sustain a writing life? Interviews served as the primary data source along with writing artifacts from the participants’ own writing life. Findings indicate that teacher-writers committed to a writing life do so for the purpose of 1) discovering meaning, 2) connections to others 3) commitment to learning and 4) well-being, with an overall …

Failure, Flexibility, And (Self-)Forgiveness: Authentic Modeling Through Distance Instruction, Brandie L. Bohney

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

After adjusting her writing methods course for distance learning due to coronavirus restrictions, an experienced teacher but early-career teacher educator gets a difficult and important reminder about what failure in the classroom feels like. Using this failure as an opportunity, she chooses an honest and vulnerable approach to readjusting the course and finds that the strategy serves both her and her students well.

Exploring The Impact Of Teacher Collaboration On Student Learning: A Focus On Writing, Shannon M. Pella

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

In this yearlong case study, six English teachers in an urban high school in Northern California engaged in sustained collaboration focused on developing and enacting strategies to improve the writing skills of their culturally and linguistically diverse freshmen. The study was conducted between August 2018 and June 2019, to determine the connections, if any, between teacher collaboration and student learning. Qualitative data were analyzed from teacher collaboration and observation of classroom practices, focus groups and teacher-created artifacts. Students’ on-demand writing assessments in fall and spring were compared with instructionally supported writing. Student surveys were analyzed in a mixed methods approach. …

The Importance Of Teacher Self-Efficacy In The Implementation Of A Middle And High School Science Writing Initiative, Michelle P. Whitacre

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This study focuses on the experiences of two science teachers who worked to implement a writing-focused, science literacy project in their classrooms. More specifically, I uncover the ways these teachers’ experiences differed and how these differences influenced their implementation. Findings confirm the importance of content teachers’ sense of self-efficacy as writers and writing teachers. In order to foster writing initiatives at the middle and secondary levels, we must honor and nurture content teachers’ sense of self-efficacy and give them multiple opportunities to develop mastery experiences.

Peer And Self Reflective Evaluations; Benefits And Techniques Used In A Middle School Art Room Setting, Mary Garrod

Masters Theses

Students’ intentional development as independent learners is increased with the understanding of self efficacy, which contributes to motivation, persistence for learning, and future achievements. However, adolescence is a time when self efficacy and motivation in art often decline. Two effective teaching and learning practices that can aid middle school art educators in the development of adolescent student judgment skills and confidence as independent learners, are self assessment and peer assessment. This paper presents literature on the topics of peer assessment, self assessment, and their link to self efficacy beliefs in adolescents. It then provides applicable, research-based self and peer evaluation …

Choice And Rigor: Achieving A Balance In Middle School Reading/Language Arts Classrooms In The Era Of The Common Core, Nancy L. Stevens

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

While the advantages of reading workshops are well known (Atwell, 1998), there is currently a debate among scholars, practitioners, and politicians about the use of instructional/independent level texts in light of the Common Core Standards’ end-of-year requirement for students to be reading at grade level (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). Particularly in middle school, where motivation to read often declines, a workshop approach can help students develop and strengthen their interest in reading. A classroom survey completed by middle school students in a suburban school district in the Midwestern United …

The Relationship Between Student Achievement And Professional Learning Communities At The Middle School Level, Michael S. Burde

Dissertations

For nearly two decades, schools throughout the United States and beyond have utilized the Professional Learning Community (PLC) model to foster teacher collaboration in hopes of improving student achievement outcomes. At the turn of the century, much of the research suggested a positive relationship between student achievement outcomes and the implementation of PLC’s in the school setting. The more recent research suggests little to no relationship between PLC’s and student achievement outcomes.

In an effort to bring clarity to the conflicting research, data was collected from a sample of 12 schools which included 275 teachers and nearly 6,000 students. Teacher …

How Do Middle School Core Content Area Teachers In A Title 1 School Use Cooperative Learning In The Context Of High Accountability For Student Proficiency: A Multiple Case Study, Martha Cunigan-Wells

Dissertations

This action research case study describes how content area teachers in a middle school with low reading achievement levels utilize cooperative learning and curriculum integration (with a focus on the integration of literacy skills and thinking skills) in their content area given the current context of accountability for student mastery of tested core content outcomes. The participants were four urban middle school teachers from the core areas of science, social studies, mathematics, and language arts who had varying levels of training and experience with cooperative learning and curriculum integration. Data sources included audio-recorded pre-conferences, video-taped classroom observations, audio-recorded post-conferences, and …

Emerging Technologies In Art Education, Molly A. Marshall

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to determine the emerging technologies in visual arts education and the impact they will make on the future of visual arts education in a K-12 setting. Research was done through a literature review. As a result, it was found that integrating technology into the visual arts is beneficial to both student and teacher on many levels.

The research will cover how these technologies affect best practices in teaching. Also how these technologies influence student learning. You will find the history of how technology has been implemented in art education, to give the reader and …

Career And Technical Education And The Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award In Education, Patricia Crum-Allen

Dissertations

This study examined Career and Technical Education (CTE) Centers in the State of Michigan and their potential alignment with the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award in Education. CTE center leaders and their faculty were asked to provide their perceptions of how well their organizations meet Baldrige quality elements, using a version of the Baldrige Assessment Tool. The study further queried CTE center leaders and their faculty with regard to quality awards received and their desire to pursue an external quality award. Differences between CTE leaders and faculty responses were explored.

This study was quantitative in design using survey research to gather …

A Method For Assessing And Describing The Informal Inferential Reasoning Of Middle School Students, Joshua Michael Goss

Dissertations

Informal Inferential Reasoning (IIR) has emerged in the last decade in the study of statistics education. Developing students’ IIR ability is seen as a way of preparing students for the important topic of Formal Statistical Inference (FSI); however, research is still needed in order to investigate how students transition between informal and formal statistical reasoning. A primary difficulty is that we do not have a way of assessing and describing students’ IIR ability levels. In order to address this, an Assessment of Informal Inferential Reasoning (AIIR) was developed, along with a Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO) taxonomy (Biggs & …

Elementary Principals’ Perspectives On Newly Graduated General Education Teachers’ Abilities To Teach Students With Disabilities In Inclusion Classrooms, Darla Jane England

Dissertations

Increasing numbers of students with disabilities are being educated in inclusive settings within elementary public schools across the United States. General education teachers are being hired to fill these positions, yet the characteristics principals view as necessary for them to be effective in such classrooms had yet to be explored. This study captured data on the knowledge, skills, and experiences candidates, coming directly out of college, should and do possess in order to be effective inclusion teachers. Principals’ perspectives on inclusion, as well as possible predictors for such perspectives, were also examined.

An online survey was used to collect the …

Veteran Teachers And Novice Coaches: A Case Study Of Content Focused Coaching In Three Persistently Failing Midwestern Middle Schools, Brian E. Gamm

Dissertations

This research is a qualitative case study analysis of the experiences of six, veteran, English Language Arts teachers, and three, first-year, English Language Arts instructional coaches all of whom are implementing a district-mandated reform strategy called Content-Focused Coaching. The settings for this research study were three Persistently Lowest Achieving middle schools. The researcher began the data collection process with the organization of Professional Learning Community agendas and minutes. Following the organization of PLC meeting agendas and minutes, four categories were identified that were used as criteria for classroom observations as well as in assisting in organizing responses collected during the …

Great Books For Late Summer Reading, Terrell A. Young, Barbara A. Ward

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

For decades now, reading experts have expressed concern that the competence gained by struggling readers during the academic year is lost during the summer months. While academic enrichment and remediation programs can reduce that loss, one of the best practices to build better readers is by having them read during breaks from school. At least one study clearly supports this suggestion. In his study of 1,600 elementary students in the mid-Atlantic area, researcher James Kim (2009) found that regardless of previous achievement level or race or socioeconomic level, children who read more books performed better on reading comprehension tests in …